Red

I felt very well-prepared for seeing Red at the Donmar. Not because i particularly know anything in-depth about Rothko (the subjet of the play), but because I've just dyed my hair an interesting shade of cherry/wine and went to the play wearing a self-created original blend of burgundy and vermilion lipstick, with my nails painted rouge-noir. a casual coincidence, but a rather fabulous one i thought. anyway, solipsistic obsession with my colour-coordination duly appreciated, i concentrated on the play, which i utterly loved from start to finish (despite the fact there were braying audience members to my left who were DOING MY HEAD IN, cackling like banshees, grrr).

For some reason i had thought the play was about the relationship between Rothko and his assistant, but it's not, although they are the two characters in the play; their relationship is a device rather than a reality. Set over two years in Rothko's studio, while Rothko was fulfilling his Seagram commission to paint several murals for The Four Seasons restaurant, it's about the artist's relationship with his art - and art in general. His relationship with colour - the pulsating vibrancy of shades of red, the fear of black - which he fears can swallow life. His uncomfortable relationship with fame. His ying/yang, Apollo/Dionysus, order/chaos relationship with life - with other artists - like Pollock, with colour, with emotion. His patronising distaste for his surrealist and modernist forebears, his outraged and unimpressed disdain for the new generation of Pop artists. These salient and fascinating discussions somehow manage to feel completely unpretentious -which is something of a miracle, really. I think this is because they are made on stage - already a pretty pretentious, theatrical and false setting in the general scheme of things. It's ideal. They are also thrashed out with eloquence through the brilliant performances of the two leads (Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne) - through the passion of character rather than pretentious notion, through heated discussion between the two men - the arrogant, self aggrandising, pompous Expressionist painter and his down-trodden eager-to-learn assistant. the reviews were generally mixed, but I was completely gripped.